My team’s P1 game is an ownership game themed around a presidential election, where players must move around a map of different states and collect votes by playing “policy” cards. To test some of the assumptions of the game, we could ask:
1. Would having a board that shows the map help make the game more immersive, organized, or fun?
- Why is this an important question to answer?
- One of the features our group decided from the start is that we want to have a physical board. However, before we allocate time to designing and crafting a physical board, it’s important to know if this would actually contribute anything to the gameplay. If not, our time could be better spent focused on other aspects of the game.
- What type of prototype will you make to answer this question?
- We could make a very simple version of the game with only two states, where one has a physical piece of paper depicting the map and the other does not. From here, we could see which version of the game people prefer playing—one where they can move their player around the map, or one where there is no board element.
- What is your guess about how it will turn out? (the practice of prediction grows your intuition)
- My guess is that having a board makes the game more compelling, as the players can visualize the country they are competing over. This, in turn, might help them get more immersed in the election theme of the game, leading to more fun as a result.
2. Should each state in the map have a different number of votes to offer, or should we aim for a more egalitarian layout?
- Why is this an important question to answer?
- In our game, each player starts in a different “home state.” If we wanted a more faithful version of a presidential election, each state would have differing numbers of votes to offer. At the same time, this could lead players to feel the game is unfair, as some players might start in states with more votes to offer.
- What type of prototype will you make to answer this question?
- We could make a simple board of just three states, where the vote counts they offer are unequal. Then, we could test this against an identical board where the vote counts are equal, and see what dynamics arise from this layout.
- What is your guess about how it will turn out? (the practice of prediction grows your intuition)
- I think having unequal vote counts will be unfair on its own, requiring some balancing via game mechanics. For instance, a player might start in a larger state, but the states around them are all smaller, creating a more equitable result in the long run.
3. Do people enjoy giving short speeches to justify silly political positions
- Why is this an important question to answer?
- One of the elements of our game we were thinking of incorporating was a brief speech competition at the end of each round, where each player must address the policy cards they played (e.g. ban all broccoli) and then hold a vote on who gave the best speech. Before we work out the mechanics of this feature, it would first be important to test if people would actually enjoy such a component.
- What type of prototype will you make to answer this question?
- For this, the prototype could be a collection of silly policy proposals, which we ask the participants to create a speech on. Then, we could have them hold a vote on who gave the best speech, and ask if they enjoyed the activity.
- What is your guess about how it will turn out? (the practice of prediction grows your intuition)
- I think people will generally enjoy this, especially if there some competitive aspect to it. At the same time, I could see some participants finding this tedious or not wanting to engage in public speaking at all.
